Posts by Andrew Wentink

The winning bid on the Archive of Civil War paymaster Erastus Hibbard Phelps, Middlebury Class of 1861, was made at auction by Andy Wentink, Curator of Special Collections & Archives. The archive was one among nearly 350 lots of American History, including Civil War, materials offered by Cowan’s Auctions in Cincinnati, OH, last Friday morning, December 2. The Phelps Archive comprises 334 letters, 4 diaries (3 from Civil War years), 2 bound volumes including a photo album containing portraits of graduates of the Middlebury Class of 1861, many of which are inscribed to Phelps. The archive also includes two photos of Phelps previous to his years at Middlebury, his paymaster sidearm (a Colt 1851 Navy 36 caliber pistol), what is believed to be his sheepskin winter jacket worn on duty, and a leather documents trunk carried during his service.

Andy also made the winning bid on another Civil War archive, 54 Letters of 2nd Lieut. Ephraim L. Hackett, Wisconsin 1st Light Artillery. Born in Maine in 1837, Ephraim L. Hackett was living in Baraboo, Wisconsin, in August 1861, when he enlisted as a Sergeant in the 1st Independent Battery, Wisconsin Light Artillery. Small in number and mobile, the Battery recruited barely over 100 men before being sent into the field in Kentucky that Fall, then went on to fight up and down the Mississippi Valley until the end of the war.

These two important Civil War collections significantly enhance Middlebury’s already impressive Civil War era archival holdings including the Aldace Walker (Middlebury Class of 1862) Letters, the Calvin Parker Letters, the Civil War Archive of Professor Kit Wilson, and nearly 100 Civil War era letters from individual writers.

The purchase of the Phelps and Hackett archives was made possible through the generous partial funding from the Friends of the Davis Family Library, the Middlebury College Museum of Art, the Julian W. Abernethy Fund, and the Davis Family Library.

A change in Summer Hours for Special Collections on the Lower Level of the Davis Family Library was approved by the LIS Area Directors at their recent meeting. The following hours will be in effect immediately:

Ian McEwan, the acclaimed English novelist, will read from his new work in Mead Chapel on Tuesday evening, September 7th,at 7:30 p.m.

McEwan is widely admired throughout the world as a writer of substance. He won the prestigious Booker Prize for AMSTERDAM, and many of his novels, including ATONEMENT, ENDURING LOVE, THE CEMENT GARDEN, and THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS, have been made into major films.

”No one writing in the English language surpasses Ian McEwan,” The Washington Post.

In collaboration with Vergennes boat builder Douglas Brooks, Special Collections is offering a new short-term exhibit The Two Pointers of Dead Creek : A Tradition of Trapping and Boat Building in Addison County. Assistant Curator Danielle Rougeau is working with Douglas Brooks on mounting the exhibit on the Lower Level of the Davis Family Library. The exhibit officially opens on Wednesday, September 1, 2010, and will be on view through Friday, October 1.

During the 2009-2010 academic year, Brooks and three Middlebury College students, Renee Igo ’11, Christian Woodard ’11 and Ben Meader ’10.5, interviewed trappers and their descendants in an effort to document the culture of muskrat trapping in Addison County, with an emphasis on the “two pointers”, the double-ended boats that trappers built.

After a training program with the Vermont Folklife Center, the researchers began recording interviews and examining historic boats. Over twenty historic trapping boats were identified in the region. Eventually several boats were carefully measured and one was chosen for replication. The students displayed an historic boat at the 2010 Middlebury College Student Research Symposium.

In the 2010 spring semester, Igo, Woodard, and Meader, guided by Brooks, built this trapping boat in studio space at Middlebury’s Old Stone Mill. The boat was launched on Commencement day, May 27, 2010.